In Brief
The 18 August 2023 article titled ‘A spate of scandals strikes Singapore’ has been removed from our website at the request of the author.
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The Prime Minister’s Office has issued a statement in response to this article: https://www.gov.sg/article/factually130923-b?fbclid=IwAR2zxQW0k56n7n6zwXv7tQj9n7ohQ-2q1KxotQWkxO_9wzj0KiiCx4U91z8
It’s a shame when the author of the said article, Ying-Kit Chan, has to request its removal from the website run by the ANU, a public institution for higher learning and research. The Lee Hsien Loong regime in Singapore has turned itself even more to become an authoritarian state if it goes to this length to silence critics and critical discussion of the Southeast Asian city-state’s politics.
It does not in any way dispel the idea of the penchant for illiberalism among Singapore’s political class, chiefly among the PAP regime, which can scarcely call itself a “government”, far less a democratic one. The PAP is renowned for shutting down critics within and outside Singapore.
Its own universities have become a standing joke, with its academics compelled to have their research vetted by academic bureaucrats linked to the PAP. It has no stomach truth apart from that which dishes out to its public, and is often nothing more that state propaganda distributed by its “media”, such as Singapore Press Holdings, which is enmeshed with the PAP. Likewise Singapore’s judiciary. .
The PAP’s actions of late, especially in light of the financial scandals of the ten foreign nationals, many, if not all, of which are linked to criminal syndicates either originating in China or in heavily China-influenced Cambodia, also dispels the myth that Singapore is incorruptible. We know that these money-laundering criminals managed to exploit Singapore’s inherently weak financial regulatory system, which is controlled by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, its central bank. But these criminals cannot have managed to bring in such huge sums of money and bought top-end Singapore properties, cars and other things without the assistance of people who work within Singapore’s regulatory system. If Malaysia’s 1MDB financial scandal managed to funnel funds through Singapore banks and/or financial houses, and the loopholes weren’t closed down, it makes sense to ask questions of who among Singaporeans, particularly within its bureaucratic and political system, was involved in aiding and abetting this criminal syndicate. And the questions shouldn’t stop here but go directly to the heart of the nature of the state that is being run by Lee Hsien Loong and the PAP.
Answers and truth should be forthcoming; not more state propaganda and bald-faced attempts to shut down critics.